Nazis Influence Film Policy of Austrian Firms

November 15, 1934

Because Austrian films to a great extent rely upon the German market, the Nazis are exerting influence upon Austrian producers that tend to keep Jewish stars inactive.

One of the noted Jewish artists in Vienna who has suffered in this manner is Leo Slezak, the well known singer who, at the age of sixty, has gone over to the films and achieved great success in comic roles. The stage and screen artist, Paul Horbiger, has also incurred the animosity of the Reich. While still in Berlin, it is said, he made no secret of his anti-Hitler proclivities. These two are working together in “The Homeless Man,” which Sacha Tobis are making in the Sievering Studio.

A third victim of the “race principle” is Adolf Wohlbruck, who had scored in the successful film, “Masquerade.” The latest picture of Franziska Gal, “Spring Parade,” has been allowed in Germany, but it has been made clear that her production, “Peter,” will be barred by officials on the grounds that the performers are “almost exclusively Jewish.”